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Congress: Turning Prisons Into Profit Now More Than Ever
When the US passed the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program or (PIE) in 1979 (THANK YOU JIMMY CARTER!) to replicate real-world private sector “employment opportunities” for inmates of US incarceration systems, it was done for positive reasons – having inmates maintain themselves, and also keep their skills practiced for their eventual release. But as with many other laws passed that benefit corporate America, the program soon fell short and found a way to be manipulated for profit.
“The Mount Everest revenue growth in the private-prison industry unequivocally represents everything that’s wrong with our pay-to-play government.” - Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream
When prisons become a thing for profiting, the obvious trajectory is to increase the prison population. The twisted people, in high places, do their best to make sure we remain the prison capitol of the world by filling them with the poor and middle class. Those who can afford a good lawyer are the other side of filling the coffers of a depraved legal system created by the very lawyers who become judges and politicians to perpetuate their scam on the very people they supposedly serve (?)
Maybe the term "to serve" should be replaced with "to exploit"
The costs to the taxpayers who cover their own exploitation are insane:
The reflections have been sent directly to the tax-payer for years, as most know. Not to mention the fact that the corporate prison enterprise “commodity” of sorts literally is traded on the NYSE. On average in 2010, it cost about $31,000 a year to keep an adult in prison, and this number varied by almost $30-40,000 depending on state. The juvenile system fares even worse as it costs close to$408 per day per inmate.
WHAT A DEAL!
We have 2.3M prisoners and nearly 5M on parole or probation; do the math!
I suppose the logic dictates that we, the US, will be a superb success if we can just reach that 10M prisoner milestone.
Congress: Turning Prisons Into Profit Now More Than Ever
When the US passed the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program or (PIE) in 1979 (THANK YOU JIMMY CARTER!) to replicate real-world private sector “employment opportunities” for inmates of US incarceration systems, it was done for positive reasons – having inmates maintain themselves, and also keep their skills practiced for their eventual release. But as with many other laws passed that benefit corporate America, the program soon fell short and found a way to be manipulated for profit.
“The Mount Everest revenue growth in the private-prison industry unequivocally represents everything that’s wrong with our pay-to-play government.” - Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream
When prisons become a thing for profiting, the obvious trajectory is to increase the prison population. The twisted people, in high places, do their best to make sure we remain the prison capitol of the world by filling them with the poor and middle class. Those who can afford a good lawyer are the other side of filling the coffers of a depraved legal system created by the very lawyers who become judges and politicians to perpetuate their scam on the very people they supposedly serve (?)
Maybe the term "to serve" should be replaced with "to exploit"
The costs to the taxpayers who cover their own exploitation are insane:
The reflections have been sent directly to the tax-payer for years, as most know. Not to mention the fact that the corporate prison enterprise “commodity” of sorts literally is traded on the NYSE. On average in 2010, it cost about $31,000 a year to keep an adult in prison, and this number varied by almost $30-40,000 depending on state. The juvenile system fares even worse as it costs close to$408 per day per inmate.
WHAT A DEAL!
We have 2.3M prisoners and nearly 5M on parole or probation; do the math!
I suppose the logic dictates that we, the US, will be a superb success if we can just reach that 10M prisoner milestone.
What kind of "freedom loving" political class would setup a prison system which profits off the pain they themselves legislate.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hyperthetic
Black market-driven profit centers.
A wise and successful "criminal" would buy shares, and receive dividends of preferential treatments.
Investments have their privileges.
A good point. I guess you could say that a criminal is only investing in his/her future. Unfortunately, 70% of the people in prison probably should have never been sent there.
There are still a few states that will send a person to prison for possession of a single joint. There have been more than a few judges caught getting kickbacks: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us...anted=all&_r=0
5000 children sent to jail for things as small as fighting on the bus, or posting on the internet, and food fights.
The judges went to jail, but what about the corporate prison executives and politicians who colluded with them?
Kickbacks and bribery are rising at every level in our justice and political systems.
I think privatization is part of the problem. Criminal justice is one area where I think it makes sense to limit the profit motive as much as possible. Otherwise there is incentive to put people in prison who might not belong there.
Another aspect of the problem is unionization of prison employees. It has been shown that prison guard unions have lobbied state legislatures for 'tough on crime' laws because this means more prisoners and in turn more guards, and more union dues. Prison guards should not be allowed to unionize, any more than for-profit prisons should be allowed.
I have said for years that this will be seen as the great moral blindness of our era. We look back at slavery and ask, 'how could they do that?' Similarly future Americans will look back at our prison system and ask 'how could they do that?'
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Prisons for Profit - How America Has Become Twisted at the Highest Level of Government
